


Continued

by gondalsqueen



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Jedi Night, Nobody Dies, Pregnancy, Team as Family, allusions to oc death, but you can probably figure out what they decide on that one, come on we all did, i have now spoiled the whole thing in tags, more hurt/comfort, non-consensual drugging, non-graphic description of past torture, very little other than hurt/comfort, you know--canon compliant, you wanted to see kanan take care of hera post-torture right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-19 12:05:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14236899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gondalsqueen/pseuds/gondalsqueen
Summary: He was holding back the explosion. He turned to face her, hand outstretched—he STOPPED her, she hated the feeling of that formless grip on her body—damn him, he lifted her right into the air, DAMN him, he was going to get himself killed, he’d been PLANNING it.But then what happened?A fix-it fic for "Jedi Night."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All right, I just spent 40,000 words processing Kanan's death and proving that I could deal with reality (if by "reality" you mean "the lives of completely fictional characters," which I do). 
> 
> But here's the thing about fictional characters--they aren't real. So they don't have to stay dead like real people unless we want them to. 
> 
> This is a little story about all those Kanan and Hera moments that should have happened but never did. Now they will.

They were losing altitude, Kanan’s weight dipping one wing of the glider and forcing Hera to strong-arm the thing starboard or fly crooked. She leaned back and pulled with all her might. They were going to clear the wall… they WERE… And there was the Imperial fuel depot—they’d made it. They hit the ground hard and Hera bounced into the air before crashing back onto the glider. Kanan lost his grip entirely and rolled across the ground, but he got up immediately, unhurt. They were going to be okay. Up the central fuel pod, climbing quickly together just like the old days. Kanan put her on the ladder first because she was, she had to admit, still just a little loopy from the interrogation drugs.

But they were fine. They made it to the top. They were fine.

Then they waited. Waiting was how a good plan went sour. 

 _Tell him_ , Hera thought. _You almost died, you are running out of time, TELL him_. But she couldn’t remember what she was supposed to say. She went for the simple truth, the thing that seemed so burningly obvious that it couldn’t remain unspoken: “I love you.” Then she kissed him to shut down all of those self-doubts. His lips on hers and his face weirdly smooth against her nose—for five seconds all was right with the world.

Sabine showed up with the gunship, Ezra gesturing to them from the back. And still Kanan dragged his feet.

Then Pryce fired on her own fuel pod and all hell broke loose.

The blast hit. The explosion followed a second later. Hera screamed and charged towards Kanan, thinking _we’ve got to get out of here, it’s already too late, what is he doing_? 

He was holding back the explosion. He turned to face her, hand outstretched—he STOPPED her, she hated the feeling of that formless grip on her body—damn him, he lifted her right into the air, DAMN him, he was going to get himself killed, he’d been PLANNING it.

But with all of his attention on her, he couldn’t stop Ezra. The kid rushed right past her and stood shoulder to shoulder with Kanan, and together they pushed.

“Get on the ship!” Kanan yelled.

“No way! You told me we do this together!”

Hera dropped abruptly onto the fuel pod and had to scramble back up.

Together, fending off the impossible, Kanan and Ezra walked backwards step by step.

“Push it outwards,” Kanan yelled. “Out towards the other pods.”

Hera watched their backs as if the force of her gaze would hold them steady. 

“Hera!” Sabine shouted. “Get on the ship so we can leave when they get here!”

Oh, of course. She grabbed the outside railing and scrambled on.

A step...another step… And then they were close enough that she could reach Ezra and drag him to safety by the nape of his neck.

“Go!” Kanan was shouting, “Go, go!” But he wasn’t on the gunship yet.

Sabine lifted off. Hera dove wildly and managed to catch his arm. If he hadn’t jumped, his weight would have dragged her right out of the transport.

Then the blast threw them sideways and they weren’t so much flying as being tossed. Kanan grabbed her on one side and Ezra on the other and they both held their footing as their ship tumbled through the sky.

“Karabast!” Sabine shouted, but Hera couldn’t get to her to help because she was literally standing over thin air.

“Ride it out,” Hera called. “Don’t try to fight it or you’ll end up in a spin.”

“Yeah, I know, I KNOW!”

Cannon shots flew past them, tracking closer, and they could do nothing but wait for control to return. Then the gunship righted. Pryce’s AT-ATs took one more shot, but they were already out of range and free, and FREE. They’d made it.

“You IDIOT!” She shoved Kanan so hard that if he hadn’t already been holding himself in place, he would have flown against the back wall. He’d scared her to death. “What was that? I thought you were going to die!”

“Yeah,” he said, shaky and completely off his game. “So did I.” He ruffled Ezra’s hair affectionately. “Some smart-alek kid always did like to throw a kink in the Force.”

“I learned from the best.” Ezra was breathing fast too. “But Hera, will you please HOLD ON to something?” 

She grabbed onto a strut and realized that Ezra was holding her in a light Force grip only when he let her go. Then it was Kanan’s turn—he wrapped his arms around her too tightly, kissed the top of her head, and left his face there. “I am constantly saved by how little I actually know about the universe.”

 _Tell him_ , she thought. _Tell him right now, blurt it out before something else can happen and mess things up again_. “As a matter of fact, I know something else that you don’t know,” she said before she could lose her nerve again. “I’m pregnant.” 

The dead silence made it clear that they’d all heard.

She hadn’t intended it like this, blindsiding him in front of other people at the worst possible moment, when she didn’t even know if she WAS still pregnant after the crash, the beatings, the torture. 

“You’re what?!” It was Ezra who spoke. The gunship listed precariously to one side as Sabine seemed to be suffering a fit of...coughing?

Kanan was wearing that smug smile that still managed to infuriate her. “As a matter of fact, I...might have known that already.”

“What?!”

He shrugged guiltily.

“We really need to talk.” 

They got out of the ship exhausted and bruised, but laughing. Zeb met them in the field and started laughing too. “You did it! You got her!”

“They got me,” Hera confirmed as Zeb picked her up in a giant hug and swung her around.

“Hey, careful!” Ezra yelled.

“Why? Is she hurt? Are you hurt?” he asked Hera.

“Pfft,” she said dismissively, right in his face. Okay, maybe the drugs hadn’t totally, 100 percent, worn off.

Zeb set her on the ground. “What, then? And what’s so funny?”

Sabine grinned. “Two words. Spectre. Seven.”

“Who’s Spectre Seven?”

Ezra whistled innocently, the message clear: don’t ask me.

“What are you talking about?” 

Kanan and Hera laced their arms behind each other and walked towards the base, worse for the wear but still in the fight.

“Guys, seriously. Who’s Spectre Seven?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to make it very clear that this is not high art. It is take-no-prisoners, kill-no-darlings, self-indulgent hurt/comfort of the most unrestrained variety. 
> 
> And right now Hera's getting comforted. 
> 
> Because she is my darling. 
> 
> To be clear.

They hadn’t been on the ground for one minute before Chopper careened across the field towards them like the murder droid he was.  By the time he got to Hera she was waiting on one knee. He bumped her hard enough to knock her onto her rear because, well, Chopper.

She really loved that droid.

He was babbling about her idiocy, as usual—didn’t she know that organics couldn’t be taken apart and put back together the same way droids could? “Hey,” she told him sternly. And then: “I missed you, too.” She rose on her heels again and put her forehead against his dome. “You did great, Chop. Thank you so much.”

Of course he’d done great. GeneralHeraSyndulla was the idiot.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. Then she looked up. And up.  

The new rebel base stood at the top of a mountain. Hera was torn between two thoughts: _Wow, that’s impressive_ , and _Great, now I have to climb up this thing_. Sabine and Zeb were already on the first stone outcropping, waiting for them. She took a deep breath and searched for a little more energy. “How did you find this place?”

“It’s...a long story,” Ezra said. 

“And you wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Sabine put in.

Zeb muttered, “I still don’t believe it.”

Chopper jetted ahead to announce their presence, although the gunship’s approach couldn’t have been missed.

Kanan took her hand, but he was exhausted, too, and the grip was more for moral support than anything. Halfway up he tripped over a stone and Hera paused. “Hey,” she said quietly, “Are you okay?”

He nodded and squeezed her hand.  

“Are you burned?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

She touched his cheek carefully and his eyebrows twitched in pain. 

“Hmm.”

“Just a little raw and tired. Come on, we can make it.”

All right, she’d let it go. For now.

“We don’t have much,” Ezra said when they caught up. “Just a radio and a few weapons and supplies we gathered from caches.”  

“We’ve done okay so far,” Hera told him with a smile.

Then they reached the top of the outcropping and...he wasn’t kidding. They really didn’t have much.

Mart gave a little whoop of triumph as they climbed onto the ledge, and Ryder Azadi said, “General Syndulla, thank the Force you’re back.” When she raised her eyebrows at the title, Mart shrugged awkwardly: “I told them about the promotion.”

“Congratulations, General.” Zeb grinned at her.

Sabine was wrinkling her nose in Ezra’s general direction. “You reek. Go take a bath and wash the fuel off.”

“That’s my cue, too,” Kanan said. “We’ll hit the pools and be right back.”

“We have pools?” Hera had the feeling she was going to like this place.  

“Yeah, and wait until you see the murals!” Sabine _would_ be more excited about murals than pools. 

“How did you guys find this place?” Hera asked again, and Zeb responded again, “You wouldn’t believe us—”

“—If you told me. Try me.”

“Some wolves led us here.”

“Wolves?” 

“Yep. Through a cave. Or...something. I don’t know. There were lots of stars.”

“In a cave.”

“I don’t know!” Zeb threw up his hands in surrender.

“Well…” she considered. “The Empire won’t think to look for us all the way out here, at least. Let’s get to work.”

“We’ve still got to find a way to shut that factory down,” Azadi said. “Looks like we’re doing it from the ground, now.” 

Hera winced. “I’m so sorry.”

“Nobody blames you!” Sabine told her.

“Still, this is going to be...harder.” Impossible? She’d flown the best battle of her life; their assault had been impossible even from the air. Usually when they had to punch above their weight they ran some scheme, but that hadn’t worked well for them lately. They had to get Thrawn off-planet, somehow, if they were to stand a chance.

“We could infiltrate,” Mart offered. 

“What, through the vents, like Ezra?” Sabine rolled her eyes.

“No. Just...somehow. I’m working on it.”

Zeb glowered, arms crossed, his thinking pose. “We need help.”

“More explosives.”

But Hera shook her head. “We’re not going to get more help from the Alliance. Even convincing them to send two squadrons was like squeezing blood from a stone.”

“So? We have friends, don’t we? We’re popular.”

“If we come up with a plan, maybe.” Hera was skeptical. “But we need a plan first.”

“I’ll call up the schematic.” Ryder fiddled with the portable holoprojector they’d rigged on a table-sized rock, and everyone gathered around. “Same problems as before,” he said while the decrepit projector loaded, “nearly impenetrable except from overhead, and even then we have to get through the shield. We have no assault vehicles and no ships. Well, one gunship now.  Four speeders.” The display sputtered to life and died again. He flicked the projector carefully with one finger and the schematics appeared, bright colors and lights.

All right, they needed some kind of opening, any weakness at all. Hera squinted at the plans, eyes watering. Concentrate, she told herself. Take this next step, get the job done. But exhaustion poured over her all at once, sapping every bit of focus she had left. She sat down abruptly on whatever was behind her—which happened to be Chopper. “Sorry, Chop.” She didn’t get up, though.

“Whoa, whoa—” Sabine caught one arm, and Chopper twittered nervously, holding very still. Zeb jumped to her other side, putting his hand on her back, but she wasn’t passing out, only sitting down.

“Ryder,” Sabine said, “I think this  meeting should wait.” 

Zeb backed her up. “Yeah. We’ve done enough for today.”

“I agree.” He touched the holoprojector and mercifully, the lights went off.

And somehow Kanan was back from bathing already, or he’d rushed out without drying, dripping onto a clean set of clothes. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Hera nodded, and the throbbing headache settled in with the second nod. “I think I was high until just now.”

“I could have told you that. You crashing off of the drugs?” 

“Let’s just say this landing is particularly exciting,” she said dryly.

“Drugs?” Sabine frowned. “What do you mean drugs?”

“Interrogation droid,” Kanan supplied.

“Hera, were you tortured?”

She tried to nod, remembered her head, and stopped. “It’s not so bad, though. I just need to rest.”

“Uh huh,” Kanan said.“Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable and take a look at you.” He slipped his shoulder under her arm and walked her towards one of the caverns just as Ezra came running with a medical kit. They all accompanied her to the cavern, which was frankly embarrassing. She wasn’t hurt, just tired. Kanan settled her onto a cot in the mercifully dark room as Ezra cracked open the med kit. “All right,” he said. “You want to give me a run-down of the injuries?” 

“I think I just need to sleep.”

“You can sleep. We just need to check on you first.”

“Mmm,” Hera mused. “It’s mostly the injection and some electrical burns. I don’t know what kind of damage that did to my system, though. It felt...bad,” she admitted. Okay, Hera, that was less than descriptive.  

“They electrocuted you?!” Sabine asked.

“Yeah,” Kanan said in sympathy. “I know that feeling. We need to look at the damage, okay?”

“Okay. I have to—” she gestured to her waist. There was no way to see the burns on her chest without taking off the whole top half of the prisoner’s uniform.

“You have to what?”

“Take her shirt off,” Sabine supplied.

“We can leave,” Zeb said. “You settled in?”

“Mm hmm. Well taken care of. Thanks, Zeb.” She restrained the urge to tell them they were overreacting. She’d scared them with the crash and scared them getting captured, and she suspected they were working through it by fussing over her more than was strictly necessary. Best to let them.

“Hold on a minute.” Ezra had opened the med kit on the ground. “Okay, Kanan, I have bandages and bacta on the top. And… here’s some antiseptic, too. Anything else you need?”

“No, that sounds great.”

“The kit is right here by your feet, so don’t kick any dust on it.”

“Actually… are you okay with me staying, Hera?” Sabine asked. “Somebody who can see should probably check you out.”

“That’s fine,” she said, eyes closed.

Chopper insisted that he was staying, too. 

“Of course,” Hera said, reaching for his dome. Such a good droid; he’d done everything just right over the past few days.

Ezra squeezed her arm on the way out, and Zeb gave her a careful little kiss on the temple and said, “It’s good to have you back.” Hera found herself grinning through the headache.

“Chop, you have a light?” Sabine asked. “I can’t see anything in here.”  

“Neither can I.” 

“Kanan, how many times do I have to tell you? Those jokes are old.”

Chopper turned his projector port towards Hera. Harsh light hit her face. 

“And they weren’t that funny to start with.”

“Wrong,” he said. “They will always be funny.”

Hera tried to laugh and winced, instead.

“All right, comedy hour’s over.” Kanan rubbed her back in empathy. “Let’s get a look at these burns.” 

She sat up and they helped her ease the shirt over her lekku and then drape it in front of her.

“Careful,” Kanan said as Sabine tugged.

“Guys, I am OKAY. I flew that glider. I climbed the ladder on my own. I’m just crashing because I’ve been hopped up on truth serum for the past few hours. I am fine.”

“You’re burned,” Sabine said. 

“A little.”

“Hmm…” A long pause while Sabine turned her towards the light and examined. “Yep. They seem pretty localized. Not too bad. We’ll need to clean them and put some bacta on them, though.”

Hera kept her eyes closed under the glare as the throbbing shifted to one side of her head. “I know.”

“You want some pain medicine first?” Kanan asked.

“I don’t even know what I’m allowed to take.”

“We can figure that out.”

Sabine was, in fact, already tapping on her wrist comm. Hera did the same— “pain medication in early pregnancy.” Chopper beat them to it, though—she was good for everything except Symoxin.

“Okay, pass me some Comaren.”

“Wait a minute, how does he know what search to run?” Sabine demanded.

“Uhm…” Hera tried to sound cool instead of sheepish. “Chopper may have known for about...three standard weeks?” Fail.

“Thanks,” Kanan said dryly.

“I’m sorry, love.”

Sabine got her three pills instead of the usual two, and she dry swallowed them.

“Let’s see what else is going on while those kick in,” Kanan suggested. 

“Yeah, it would be nice to finish and get some clothes.”

“This is a bruise?” Sabine asked, touching her side lightly. 

“From the glider crash.” She slipped her pants down to see how far it went. Hmm. She’d taken most of the impact on her thigh, which was probably for the best.

“Okay, we can fix that,” Kanan said.

“Hera, will you drop the shirt just for a second?” Sabine asked.

“Why?”

“Please?”

She dropped it to her lap obligingly and held out her arms.

“Okay, good. Just checking.”

“For what?” Hera pulled her shirt back over her chest.

“Bite marks,” Sabine admitted nervously. “Fingermark bruises.” 

Kanan searched for her hand and wrapped it in his.

“Oh! No. No, don’t worry, it wasn’t like that. Pryce got a little overzealous with the electrocution, and then there was the interrogation droid at the end, but you guys got there before I could even say anything. Before that, they spent… I don’t know how long actually healing me. How long has it been?”

“A day and a half,” Kanan told her.

“Wow. Yeah, I spent most of that time unconscious.”

“Healing you from what?”

“Head and arm from the crash,” she enumerated. “Maybe some ribs? And then ramming the speeder into an AT-AT, but I don’t think that did much damage. And an ongoing fight with that bounty hunter.” That had been the worst part, running through the city streets knowing he was tracking her from above, the sudden drop in front of her, fighting, then running again. Nightmares were made out of that kind of stuff and if she’d taken serious injuries, it had been then. 

“Chopper told us about that,” Kanan said.

Chopper filled in—he’d told them how she’d stomped that creep.

Hera laughed and winced again. “I think the stomping was mutual. He’s...really good. Better than me. Kanan, I’m sorry for every sparring session I’ve ever complained about.”

“Told you it would save your life.” He probed gently at her head, her face, her shoulder. “Nothing hurts?” 

“Nothing hurts,” she confirmed. “Can I put on a shirt now?”

“Just a minute.”

If you had to have someone apply bacta ointment to burns, Sabine, with that artist’s touch, was the way to go. It still hurt, but not as much as Hera had expected. Chopper fetched something from across the room—her pilot’s suit, where had they gotten it?—and they helped her into the shirt and pants before she laid down again. The headache was gone, leaving the sense that her body had been drained of all energy, but that wasn’t the same as pain.

“You going to sleep?” Sabine asked.

“I’m already asleep,” Hera told her without opening her eyes.

“Okay, I’m going to take off.”

Chop blatted a question. 

“Yeah, Chopper, go recharge,” Hera told him. “Kanan’s going to stay with me.” She smiled to herself, sparing a lazy glance at him.  

Under the glare of Chopper’s lamp, Kanan’s lips twitched into that old, affectionate expression. “Of course I am.”

“He’s going to put some bacta on his face, too.”

“It’s really not bad.”

“I plan to listen to your protests about as much as you listened to mine.” 

“You want me to get it?” Sabine asked.

“No, I’ve got it.” Hera tugged him closer so she didn’t have to sit up and Kanan handed her the bacta tube and knelt obligingly in front of her. Sabine and Chopper crept out while Hera daubed it on his face and spread it as gently as she could. He didn’t move a muscle, which meant that she was hurting him while he tried not to show it. 

“What else? Your hand?”

“Just a little.”

She hauled herself into a sitting position and took his hands in hers. “Kanan, this one’s swollen and stiff with burns. That has to hurt.”

“It looks worse than it feels.”

She rubbed bacta on it as gingerly as she could. “How would you know? And why didn’t you say something?”

“I wasn’t the one who had been tortured.”

“Well, now that we’ve thoroughly established that I’m FINE, you’re taking some Comaren, too.” She leaned over the med kit and squinted at the labels in the gloom. “Here.”

Kanan swallowed the medicine dutifully, then pulled a cot from across the room next to hers and laid down behind her while she curled on her side. Instead of wrapping his arm around her, though, he put a careful hand on her back. His burned hand.

“You sleep, too,” she told him.

“In a minute. I think I can check for any damage from the electrocution.” 

Oh, he meant using the Force. Already she felt the warm, comfortable feeling where his hand rested on her back. She hoped he used it to look after himself, as well.

“What’s the verdict?” she murmured.

“You’ve got some...shockiness here.”

Hera laughed tiredly. Shockiness from shocks, of course she did.

“Really.” She could hear the smile in Kanan’s voice. “I don’t think there’s any damage to your heart. Your nervous system’s a little fried, though. I think I can help with that.” 

“It’ll wait. Do your hand first.”

“Hera,” he said quietly. “You’re not _fine_. Trust me? Tell me this time?”

She considered her words carefully. “I don’t think you understand how incredibly grateful I am right now.”

He waited. _Go on_ , that silence said.

“I was...hurt. REALLY hurt, and Thrawn made their medical team put me back together again before they tortured me. I was in pain. And I was...afraid. So afraid that I would reveal the base’s location—”

—she had a paranoid moment where she wondered if this was some delusion, a trick of the drugs to make her think she was safe, to make her say “Yavin IV.” Yeah, maybe she was a little more thrown that she’d thought—

“—But really I’m okay. I knew you were coming.” 

“I’m here,” he confirmed.

“And then I thought you were going to die,” she continued. “I really did, this time. I am so mad at you right now...” There was no sting in her words, though, only the weepiness of a close call. 

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m not dead. It’s okay.” His hand stayed warm against her back, radiating comfort and easing tired muscles. She could have been conscious or barely asleep, dreaming his next words. “I was supposed to die.” They came to her as a whisper. “The Force showed me that path. Either I died or we all died, and it was going to be okay, Hera. I don’t know what happens now.”

“I do,” she thought she muttered. “Next time it tries to take you, the Force can go through me first.”

She drifted off quickly, Kanan’s hand still on her back, into a sleep with no pain and no more dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

Hera woke with the afternoon glare shining into the cave, her mouth dry and her stomach growling to the point of sickness. At first she thought she was alone. Then she spied Kanan in the shadows, sitting against the stone wall with his head back and his mouth slightly open, asleep. He must have gotten up and come back while she slept. How long HAD she slept? They’d arrived at the new base just after dawn.

 _Hey, pay attention_ , her stomach demanded. _You haven’t eaten in days._ A pile of gear lay in the corner. Hera tore through it until she found a canteen of water and a ration bar. She dug in without wasting any time on details such as who the canteen belonged to.

When she turned back around, chewing a too-big mouthful, Kanan was awake and facing her direction—his version of looking at her. 

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” she mumbled.

“It’s all right; I slept plenty. You seem better.”

She considered, flexing her shoulders—achy with the stiffness of sore muscles and minor bruises. Her chest was probably still burned, but the bacta had begun to do its work and it didn’t smart at all when she moved. “Much better.”

“Good,” he said, and she finally caught the tightness that had been in his voice this whole time. “Then we can talk.”

Uh oh. She took another bite and chewed with laborious slowness.

“Don’t give me that look,” Kanan told her. “You know what we’re talking about.”

“You don’t know what look I’m giving you,” she responded around her mouthful of ration bar.

“Yes, I do. Time to come clean, Hera.”

She took a deep breath, pushing back the dread in her chest. Now she would have to make a decision.

“Why didn’t you just tell me? Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Yes! Of course! There just...wasn’t a good time.” 

“That’s not true.”

She sighed and tried to hit closer to the mark. “It’s hard, Kanan. Okay? And you kept pushing me to give more to YOU, back off from the fight, and that put me on the defensive. I couldn’t talk to you until I’d figured out what I thought, myself.” 

“And now you’ve figured it out?”

“Not exactly.”

“I just...wish you’d trust me,” he said wistfully.

Hera winced.

“You kept not telling me. And I thought maybe you were going to take care of things without EVER telling me. And that hurt, Hera.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“And then you didn’t do anything about it one way or the other, for weeks, and...I didn’t know what was going on in your head.”

“I thought you wouldn’t have to worry if you didn’t know anything.” It was a sorry justification. “Last time we went through this, you said you couldn’t tell.” 

“Last time it was just a scare; there was nothing TO tell.”

“And...now there is?” she asked. “You can feel it?”

He frowned, considering. “Not at first. I kept having these...pieces of visions that didn’t make sense. Dreams, really. I thought I was crazy. And then…” he laughed, a tired sound. “You stopped drinking caf, and I knew for sure.” 

“Oh.” She hadn’t thought about that.

“But then later—after we got to Lothal—if I concentrated hard, really searched for it, I could feel it.”

“Can you feel it now?” she asked, fear of she didn’t know what in the pit of her stomach. 

“You want to know if we lost the baby?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

He sighed. “Come sit down next to me.”

She did, nestling into his side, and he wrapped his arm around her and let his hand rest low on  her abdomen. _What are you hoping for?_ she asked herself.

Kanan closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “Still there,” he said after a moment. “Definitely still there.”  

Relief AND terror. Great, that wasn’t confusing at all. “What does it feel like?”

“Like…” He searched for words. “...Not a person. A glow. Something asleep and waiting. Getting stronger every day.” A little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and she thought absurdly: _This thing is my body, and I can’t even tell yet. He can feel it already._

Yet. Already. Well, those were telling words.

“You okay?” he asked gently.

She nodded against his arm. 

“You told everyone.”

She nodded again. She hadn’t thought that one through very well.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted to keep it.”

“If you knew better,” she said shakily, automatically, going for the easy joke, “We wouldn’t be in this situation.” 

But he didn’t take the bait, just reiterated, “WE are in this situation. Not you.” When she said nothing, he sighed and drew her closer to him, kissing the top of her head and letting his face rest there for a moment. The old Kanan brooding demeanor settled over him. Then he pulled himself together and asked: “So. Baby. Are we really going to do this, then?”

Everything Hera had built up inside to keep herself going crumbled into a body-shaking sob.

“Hey. Hey,” Kanan rubbed her arms. “It’s okay. It’s not that bad. We’re both alive. Nobody’s hurt. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

“Torture I can handle without missing a beat.” Hera laughed through the tears. “Pregnant? Kanan, I’m scared out of my mind.” 

“Talk me through it,” he said. “I’ll sit here and be scared with you, too.”

“I can’t see...us...with a baby. I keep trying to picture it a year out, and I can’t figure out how it works, Kanan. Because it doesn’t work.”

He nodded sagely. “Doing the impossible.”

“The irresponsible.”

He rubbed her arm again and waited, his earlier anger gone, or at least put aside for the moment. He’d gotten a lot more patient in the past year.

“But then I think—if he’s made it through the past few weeks, who am I to put an end to that?”

“He,” Kanan said softly.

“Yes.”

He drew in a deep breath and sighed, exhaling the weight of the galaxy. “Well...what do you want?”

“I don’t know!” She’d been so sure that they’d decided already years ago, so sure that she was prepared for this, so wrong. “I think the right thing is to terminate. We’re already down to the wire in this war, we don’t have time, and we don’t have resources. And if we don’t take that Defender factory out, we’re done right here.” 

“Okay,” he said, clearly restraining that urge to argue.

“If I’m...pregnant—” she said the word again to test it out— “the people around me are going to be...off. Overcautious. You practically sacrificed yourself yesterday, and it wasn’t even necessary. And I’LL be incapacitated at some point. I haven’t hung back yet, but that’s going to change soon.”

“You think you are going to throw people off their game,” he reiterated, skeptical. “Zeb. Sabine. _Chopper?_ ” He gave her that significant look, then relented: “Okay, Ezra, maybe.”

Hera stuck to her guns. “Yes. I do. Do you know what happened today?  They all panicked because I SAT DOWN.”

But Kanan cut her off before she’d even finished her sentence: “They panicked because we nearly lost you and everybody figured out there was no possible way we could face life without you.”

How was she supposed to respond to that? She pressed her lips together, saying nothing.

“Hera,” he said too softly.

“What?” she managed to avoid snapping. She wasn’t mad at him. She was just scared and in uncharted territory.

“Your body doesn’t exist for the sole purpose of aiding the Rebellion.” 

“I KNOW that. But I dedicated myself to this fight. I took a command position. I promised.”

“Wait,” he said. “It doesn’t exist for having babies, either. You…are really good about owning yourself in a lot of ways. You’re stupidly independent most of the time.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he wasn’t done yet. “But then you get these ideas of self-sacrifice. ...I haven’t heard a single word about what you want in all of this. Only what would be good for the Rebellion, or bad for any future children. What do YOU want?”

“I don’t know. To fight against the Empire. Give people their lives back.”

“Uh uh. That’s not what we’re talking about. What’s the point of having a life if you’re not going to use it?”

“Well, what do YOU want?”

“Mostly to live my life next to you,” he said. “And it’s not my body. But, if you’re asking me…”

“I am.”

“You already know the answer.”

“You want to keep it.” 

He inclined his head just a little, a tacit acknowledgment. “But you’re still dodging my question. What does Hera Syndulla actually want out of her life?”

She sighed, a ragged sound that he probably thought was her huffing. “Give me a minute.”

“All right.”

But she couldn’t really think it through with Kanan that near, so she retreated to the other side of the cave and paced. She liked the way things were now. Sabine and Ezra and Zeb and Chopper and Kanan—her family, all of them brilliant and competent. But things wouldn’t stay the same forever. Sabine and Ezra would grow up and go their separate ways. Even the idea that Zeb would live out the rest of his life aboard the Ghost was laughable. If they added a small, needy person to that mix, things would change, get more difficult, and maybe she didn’t want them to change. But that was stupid. Nobody could stop change.

She still couldn’t see them with a baby, but they’d done okay by Ezra and Sabine, hadn’t they? What about when this one was older? She could picture Kanan patiently instructing him with a stick sword. She would teach him to fly. They would be careful and caring, and he’d grow up to be a good person in a galaxy that desperately needed good people. Sure, they wouldn’t stop fighting, but their support network was vast. He wouldn’t have to feel alone or abandoned when his parents went off to battle. And she could avoid the mistakes of her own childhood—a girl with no mother and a father she couldn’t possibly please, lost in a war that was much too hard for her.

 _And a little boy whose mother did everything in the galaxy to save him and broke when he died, anyway. You weren’t the only child in that family_ , _Hera,_ she reminded herself. And now it was time to face some ugly truths, because she could, in fact, see herself and Kanan with a baby. Chubby legs, sweet little mouth, and that clean baby scent—it could be so nice. But she also knew what happened to babies in wartime, and that scared her to death.

 _What do you want, Hera?_ Kanan had asked. And she didn’t know the answer because she was terrified, running scared from the fate she’d already seen.

No, not fate. That was the past, her brother a different baby. Not fate, just chance. They still had a chance. And she was Hera d’nercathi Syndulla; was she going to organize her life around a fear of what might happen? Lose before she’d begun because she was so afraid of losing later?

 _Remember who you are,_ she told herself. _Remember who he is. Trust._

“Okay.” She turned to Kanan, still waiting patiently across the room. “Let’s have a baby, then.”


End file.
